Sunday, January 15, 2012

Eva

Address: 317 S Main St, Salt Lake City, UT 84111. 801.359.8447.

Review: So, it's a Saturday afternoon and you have a business lunch scheduled. The downtown restaurant you planned on frequenting isn't open. What do you do? What do you do? If you're me, you quick find another restaurant in the vicinity and start walking. Eva fit the bill, so we walked.

Eva is billed by some as a tapas restaurant. While there are some small plates, the majority of dishes are standard restaurant size. What is much more like a tapas restaurant is the ambiance. Intimate, hard-wood tables, good food.

I started with the chicken and blue cheese salad.

This is the kind of green salad I very much enjoy because it's not really about the greens. The star here is the chicken, which was tender and juicy, and the interplay between sweet components (e.g., grapes, apples) and savory ones (e.g., blue cheese, vinaigrette). Just as you bite into the not-too-strong blue cheese, you get a shot of crunchy, sweet apple. The acid in the grapes and vinaigrette help cut the fattiness of the cheese and the savoriness of the chicken. Well done.

Next up was the Greek mezze plate.

Quickly, this wasn't as good as the salad. The pita was okay, although I the strong flavor of what seemed to be fennel seed didn't really do it for me. The tatziki was okay, if not a bit runny, and the feta wasn't particularly flavorful.

Finally, my compadre partook of the full Irish.

I was happy to see this on the menu. For those who haven't been introduced to the goodness that is the full Irish, it's an Irish breakfast, complete with Irish bacon, sausage, potatoes, marmalade, toast, eggs, and a roasted tomato. (Honestly, it's pretty much the same thing as a full English breakfast, but don't tell an Irish person that. If you do, they'll sick one of those beady-eyed leprechauns on you.) And while I didn't actually eat this full Irish, I was informed of its hardy goodness. And since it looked and smelled surprisingly similar to the full Irishes I had all over Ireland, I believed what he was telling me.

Ultimately, can't wait to go back, especially when I want to stuff myself with meat and potatoes in the a.m.